Blicher, Steen Steensen

(1782-1848)

   A Danish short story writer and poet, Blicher spent his life as a Jutland parson. Drawing on folk life and at times using the local dialect in his stories, he produced the earliest realist literature in Denmark and anticipated narrative techniques associated with modernism. Blicher's stories are of uneven quality. Many were written simply because he was in a financial bind, but the best of them have become classics in Danish literature. His first significant prose work bears the title Brudstykker af en Landsbydegns Dagbog (1824; tr. The Diary of a Parish Clerk, 1945), in which he utilizes the biography ofthe Danish noblewoman Marie Grubbe; this material was later to be used by J. P. Jacobsen as well. But it is the position of the narrator, the son of a parish clerk who later becomes a parish clerk himself, that is of the greatest interest in the story. An outside observer, the narrator views the events of the story with limited omniscience while Blicher manipulates his point of view so as to provide psychological insights into the characters.

   Some of the other stories show surprisingly modern narrative techniques as well. In "Præsten i Vejlbye" (1829; tr. "The Parson at Vejl-bye," 1945) Blicher uses both documents and diary narrative to uncover the wrongful execution of a local clergyman. "Sildig Op-vaagnen" (1828; tr. "Tardy Awakening," 1945) uses retrospective narration to uncover a story ofadultery and suicide. "Hosekræmmeren" (1929; tr. "The Hosier and His Daughter," 1945) employs two different narrators who together tell a story of misguided parental love and control. "E Bindstouw" (1842; "In the Knitting Room") dramatizes the narrative situation and adds a sense ofrealism through the use of Jutland dialect. Blicher's poetry collection Trækfuglerne (1838; The Migratory Birds) takes the transitoriness of life as its main theme.